Undergraduate Program

BA in Environmental Studies (ESP)

The BA in environmental studies is designed to guide students who have interests in environmental management through a program that links courses in the natural and social sciences. Students successfully completing this program could expect to pursue graduate programs in such fields as:

Law

Public policy

Urban and regional planning

Environmental management

Student may also gain entry-level employment with consulting firms and public agencies.

Required Courses

Prerequisite Courses

Chemistry:

CHM 131: Chemical Concepts, Systems, and Practices I

Mathematics: (choose one of the following options)

MTH 161: Calculus IA

MTH 141: Calculus I andMTH 142: Calculus II

Core Courses

The core courses deal explicitly with important environmental problems and illustrate the relationship between the content of specific disciplines (such as geology, chemistry, economics, and political science) and the practice of environmental analysis and management.

Choose one of the following introductory core courses*:

EES 100: Introduction to Oceanography

EES 101: Introduction to Geological Sciences

EES 103: Introduction to Environmental Science

EES 105: Introduction to Climate Change

*Students taking more than one 100-level core course may count the additional courses as technical electives, so long as they have not already taken an upper-level course in the same area of study.

Choose two of the following*:

EES 201: Evolution of the Earth

EES 212: A Climate Change Perspective to Chemical Oceanography

EES 213(W): Hydrology and Water Resources

EES 216(W): Environmental Geochemistry

EES 218: Atmospheric Geochemistry

EES 219: Energy and Society

EES 235: Physical Oceanography

EES 236: Physics of Climate

*If more than two courses are taken, the additional courses will be counted as technical electives.

Skills Course

Choose one of the following*:

CHM 203/207: Organic Chemistry plus Lab

CSC 161: Introduction to Programming

EES 251: Introduction to GIS

STT 211: Applied Statistics for the Social Sciences

STT 212: Applied Statistics for the Biological and Physical Sciences

EES 221: Quantitative Environmental Problem Solving

*If more than one course is taken, the additional courses may be counted as technical electives.

Elective Courses

Five elective courses must be chosen to create what the student and the faculty advisors view as a coherent program. The elective courses are presented in two groups:

Natural sciences and engineering

Social sciences/humanities

Some of these courses may require a prerequisite course not specified as part of the program.

Students must choose TWO natural science and engineering courses and THREE social sciences/humanities courses. New courses, one-time courses, or study-abroad courses may be included upon departmental faculty approval.

Natural Sciences and Engineering Courses

Choose two of the following natural sciences and engineering courses:

Biological and health sciences:

BIO 102: Natural History

BIO 104: Ecosystem Conservation and Human Society

BIO 205(W): Evolution

BIO 110/112: Principles/Perspectives of Biology I (if taken in the first year)

BIO 225: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

BIO 247: Environmental Animal Physiology

BIO 250: Biochemistry

BIO 253: Computational Biology

BIO 260(W): Animal Behavior

BIO 263(W): Ecology

PH 103: Concepts of Epidemiology

PM 415: Principles of Epidemiology

Geological and environmental sciences

EES 203(W): Sedimentology and Stratigraphy

EES 204(W): Earth Materials

EES 205: Solid Earth Geophysics

EES 207(W): Principles of Paleontology

EES 208: Structural Geology

EES 209: Intro to Geochemistry

EES 219: Energy and Society

EES 220: Intro to Geobiology

EES 222: Energy Resources

EES 231: Ice Sheets, Glaciers, Climate Change

EES 232: Seminar in Marine Biogeochemistry

EES 233: Marine Ecosystems and Carbon Cycling Modeling

EES 234: Fundamentals of Atmospheric Modeling

EES 248(W): High Temperature Geochemistry

EES 252: Marine Geology

EES 255: Planetary Science: Geologic Evolution

EES 265: Paleoclimate

EES 266: Ice Core Records of Climate and Environmental Change

EES 270(W): Vertebrate Paleontology

EES 274: Seminar in Paleoceanography

Chemistry and chemical engineering

CHM 132: Chemical Concepts, Systems and Practices II

CHM 204/208: Organic Chemistry II plus Lab

CHM 231: Chemical Instrumentation

CHM 286: Energy, Science, Technology, and Society

CHE 150: Green Energy

Social Sciences/Humanities

Choose three of the following courses:

Economics

ECO 207: Intermediate Microeconomics

ECO 238: Environmental Economics

Environmental humanities

EHU 245: Nature / Culture / Memory / Modernity

EHU 267: Media Space: From Film to Smart Phones

EHU 268: Food, Media, Literature

EHU 250: Food Justice, Urban Farming, Social Practice

History

HIS 186: History of Energy Resources and Utilization

HIS 235(W): Earth, Wind, Water, Fire: An Environmental History of the Globe

HIS 300W: The History of Nature

Philosophy

PHL 102: Ethics

PHL 103: Contemporary Moral Problems

PHL 135: Environmental Ethics

PHL 230(W): Environmental Justice

Political science

PSC 239: International Environmental Law

PSC 241(W): Urban Change and City Politics

PSC 243(W): Environmental Politics

PSC 246: Environmental Law and Policy

PSC 247(W): Green Markets

Courses in other departments

AH 234: Art and Environment

ANT 224: Anthropology of Development

PH 232: Environmental Health Policy

Closure Course

At least four credit hours are required. Seminars or senior theses with environmental content offered in other departments are also acceptable (after approval by one of the program advisors).

Transfer credit for required courses is accepted in accordance with rules of the department offering the course, and for technical electives on a case-by-case basis after consultation with a faculty advisor.